Conventional packing gland assemblies mountable on rotatable and/or axially displaceable shafts of various devices such as horizontal batch mixers, motors, rotary valves, pumps and the like, generally consist of a housing member mountable on a shaft, having an opening for receiving the shaft therethrough, provided with an enlarged, annular section about the shaft when the housing is mounted on the shaft, a set of packing rings mountable on the shaft within the annular space of the housing member, a follower member mountable on the shaft and engaging the packing rings and means for pressing the packing rings against an annular wall of the housing member to expand the rings radially and thus form a seal between the shaft and the housing. Typically, such packing rings must be replaced and/or the assembly must be cleaned periodically which requires the dismounting of the assembly and the disassembly of the components thereof. Such disassembly of the components often is hampered by the fact that the packing rings become lodged within the housing and are difficult to remove. Various tools often are required to remove such lodged rings including various hooks, screws and other forms of extractors. It thus has been found to be desirable to provide a packing gland assembly which may be readily dismounted from a shaft and disassembled to replace the packing rings and/or clean the components thereof which does not require any special tools for extracting and removing the packing rings from such an assembly.